Cardenas Over DiSalvo in Barber Daytona SportBike

Henny Ray Abrams | May 2, 2009

M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas passed teammate Jason DiSalvo on the 20th of 21 laps to win his second Daytona SportBike race of both the season and his career, today’s victory coming late on an overcast afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park.The teammates took control of the race on the seventh lap by passing early leader Josh Herrin (Team Graves Yamaha), who stayed on their tails until the mid-point when the gap grew to 1.746 seconds and continued, and Herrin would soon be a target from behind.At that point it was Cardenas in the lead, but DiSalvo took it back on lap 13. Seven laps on and Cardenas made the pass that would carry him to his second victory. His first came in the first race of the previous round at Road Atlanta.The margin of victory was .666 of a second.Herrin lost third to Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking on lap 18. Hacking had been second to Herrin on the second lap when a near crash and amazing save in the final corner dropped him to seventh. Hacking then spent the rest of the race catching up.Hacking took over the final podium position by catching, then passing Herrin on the exit of the left hand turn five horseshoe. By then the leaders were too far gone and he had to settle for third. Herrin came fourth.Then a gap of nine seconds to Tommy Aquino on the second Team Graves Yamaha. Aquino spent most of the race fronting a trio that included Steve Rapp (Yam) and Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke. They finished in that order.Bruce Rossmeyer Daytona/RMR Buell’s Danny Eslick finished eighth, just in front of Taylor Knapp, also Buell-mounted.Erion Honda’s Chris Peris rounded out the top 10.The championship tightened up considerably, with Eslick in front of Hacking by two points, 122-120, and Herrin third at 114.

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.